Every morning when he opens the curtains, Stuart Slicer is treated to a glorious view of the Forth Bridge.

So it came as something of a surprise to his wife and family when he came home from a charity auction with a 10ft by 4ft photograph depicting the exact same view of the world-renowned engineering masterpiece.

Mr Slicer, 58, who drove across the railway bridge thousands of times in his former job as a train driver, left his family in hysterics after unveiling the purchase – with one member saying that ‘seemingly he forgot he could just open the blinds’.

Much to his wife Helen’s dismay, Mr Slicer, who lives in South Queensferry, just outside of Edinburgh, won the huge picture at a charity auction during the local Ferry Fair Festival last Friday.

Stuart Sliver would not disclose how much he paid for the enormous picture of the Forth Bridge - which he can already see in real life from his South Queensferry Home

Mr Slicer, a former train driver who has crossed the bridge thousands of times, purchased the photograph from a charity auction, even after being warned not to return with any 'rubbish'

He refused to say how much he paid for it, but admitted it was a ‘three-figure sum’.

He said: ‘When I told my wife about it, she said, “That’s not going up on that wall”.

‘I phoned my son and said, “Come down here, I want to show you something, you need to come down, you’ll appreciate it”.